What’s odd is not being shunned, or worse, because of my weight. I’m pretty sure that fitness fiends wouldn’t use me as a role model, not a positive one. But they’re easy to avoid or ignore.

The point is that I haven’t spent a lifetime dealing with folks who seemed determined to fill me with guilt and shame. I’ll grant that some health fanatics can be a tad overbearing.

That’s what’s odd, since obesity hasn’t been a status symbol since the Renaissance. Current American culture views gluttony, an obvious cause of obesity, as a bad idea. The attitude isn’t entirely wrong.

But I don’t remember running into anyone who attacked fat folks for ‘religious’ reasons. Not with the hatred I’ve seen expressed against folks with unusual sexual desires. Why that is, I don’t know.

Seven Sins

Gluttony is one of the seven capital sins. The others are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, and sloth. (Catechism, 1866)

“Sloth,” in this sense, isn’t laziness.

It’s acedia, a lack of spiritual effort, refusing to ‘work out my salvation.’ I figure that would include my job as someone with dual citizenship:2 in America, and Heaven. (Philippians 2:12, 3:20; Catechism, 1949, 2094, 2733)

“Pride” in this context is self-esteem above and beyond the call of reason.

Many long-overdue reforms which were new in my youth didn’t turn out as I had hoped. But on the whole, I like living in today’s America. It’s not perfect. But that’s true of every society, today or in the past.

I must do what I can to help make tomorrow’s America, and world, better. (Catechism, 1913–1916, 2239)

There isn’t much I can do to change my nation, much less the world. But I can do something about myself.

Changing the world starts inside me, with an ongoing “inner conversion.” (Catechism, 1886–1889)

Unless I act as if I think people matter, I can hardly expect folks to take me seriously.

Not when I talk about love, justice, charity, and respect for “the transcendent dignity of man.” (Catechism, 1928–1942, 2419–2442)

And I certainly shouldn’t imagine that I’m one of the “righteous” few. Life isn’t that simple. Neither are issues we’re dealing with.

“…Here I think of the political history of the United States, where democracy is deeply rooted in the mind of the American people. All political activity must serve and promote the good of the human person and be based on respect for his or her dignity….

“…A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners….”
(“Visit to the Joint Session of the United States Congress,” Pope Francis7 (September24, 2015))

1 Deliberate, consistent, self-defeating behavior may eventually be recognized as a disorder. That topic has been discussed for at least three decades. I’ve run into folks who act as if they think it’s a virtue. I think it’s a problem, and inconsistent with love:

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About Brian H. Gill

I'm a sixty-something married guy with six kids, four surviving, in a small central Minnesota town. I mostly write and make digital art. I'm only interested in three things: that which exists within the universe; that which exists beyond; and that which might exist.

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